Listed as the top graduate music program in the country by U.S. News and World Report and as one of the top seven by C.J. Everett, author of The Performing Arts Major’s College Guide: Dance, Drama, Music, University of Indiana’s School of Music is a mecca for voice students from around the world.
Some of the factors considered in judging IU as a premier training ground for singers are its top-notch faculty, state-of-the-art facilities and excellent performance opportunities. The school’s Opera Theatre, for example, puts on eight full-scale productions per year that yield 80 to 100 roles for students. In addition, choirs, ensembles, opera workshops, concerts and recitals provide willing voice students with hundreds of other ways to perfect their talents. The school boasts 180 practice rooms, a vast music library, three recital halls and a performance practice facility with 80 soundproof rooms.
Altogether, 1,400 students receive instruction in music each year at IU from a faculty of between 140 and 150 teachers. Of these, approximately 400 are voice students (two-thirds sopranos) and 20 of the faculty are vocal teachers.
According to Dr. Paul Kiesgen, Chairman of the Voice Department: “Our faculty is composed of people who have had distinguished careers as performers and teachers. Because it is widely known that we offer good instruction, we attract some of the best singers. Students come to us because they know they will receive good teaching. The fact that two of the top five singers in the Met auditions were students at IU demonstrates that our students are learning to sing very well.”
At $14,000 a year for non-resident graduate students, IU beats tuition costs at institutions such as Juilliard and Peabody by a generous margin. And approximately 60% of its music students receive some form of financial aid to ease the burden. For grad students, this can take the form of associate instructor (AI) or graduate assistantship (GA) awards, which provide a tuition waiver and stipend in exchange for work. Partial tuition awards and federal student loans are also available.
All of this paints an alluring picture for young singers seeking an edge in the competitive field of classical music. But, as is usually the case with perfect pictures, IU’s ideal image blurs upon close inspection. Alumni and current graduate students of the voice program have widely disparate opinions about its quality, effectiveness and fairness. And emotions run high because, for many, this education is an indicator of how they will perform later on in the “real world.”
One alumna, who preferred to remain anonymous, was still bitter about her experience at IU 23 years after receiving her MM degree in Voice. She found the environment at the School of Music to be both emotionally abusive and academically lacking. In her eight years there, she was never cast in a production, and she found many teachers to be mean-spirited or, worse, indifferent to the needs of pupils.
“At the Master’s level, many instructors of music history and theory were there for the prestige only,” she says. “They felt that teaching was beneath them, but they put up with it so they could publish and get free grad assistants to do work for them. They were teaching enormous classes. Few students ever got questions answered during a lecture, and you could not get attention after class either.”
According to this alumna, most teachers tended to favor students they felt would be successful and intimidated those they didn’t think were worth their effort. “If you didn’t fall into the category of the chosen few, your experience at Indiana could be very unpleasant,” she says.
Filtering through this graduate’s deep disappointment were a few rays of light—a couple of good and caring voice teachers, participation in ensembles such as The Singing Hoosiers, and time spent in the Kodály Summer Program, which taught a specific method of music education that has served her ever since. But in the end, she was so turned off by her time at IU that she couldn’t even listen to classical music for several years after graduating.
Though one student who had a bad experience cannot speak for the thousands of others who preceded and followed her, the intensity of emotion—and the degree to which she felt slighted—reveal something important about what young singers go through trying to stand out at IU. Many enter shining with confidence and emerge several years later feeling diminished. Having come from a much smaller world where great voices were few, they find themselves suddenly surrounded by scores of excellent singers. Those who are less talented, less attractive, less aggressive, can easily fade into the background. It’s no wonder that some feel anger and frustration.
Such feelings are evident on the Classical Singer website Forum for IU, where students of all levels vent about unfair casting for Opera Theatre, financial aid ratings that favor the best singers, too many operas in English, a serious lack of coaches, teachers who cannot teach, inadequate training in movement and acting, and petty politics among faculty members.
Current doctoral student John Howell has mixed emotions. “The program has both lived up to and failed my expectations,” he says. “On the one hand, it is quite an honor to be affiliated with the School of Music. The overall talent pool is astounding. However, the politics of the voice department are disheartening—it seems more like an opera company than an educational institution. In addition, teaching assistantships are awarded on the basis of audition only; prior teaching or academic record is not a factor in their assignment.”
Even those who are happy with the voice program grumble about the practice of using assistantships as a recruiting tool. Doing so, they feel, deprives deserving students of much-needed funding and teaching experience, while placing unqualified singers with no pedagogy background in associate instructor positions.
Maya Hoover is a good example of the former. A doctoral student who entered IU with a 3.97 GPA and nine years of teaching experience, she wasn’t even considered for an assistantship when she arrived because she wasn’t one of the top singers. Though somewhat disconcerted by the school’s policy of using financial aid as a lure for talent, she persevered. Finally, in her second year, she fought her way into an Associate Instructor (AI) award.
Despite initial difficulties in adapting to IU, Maya remains one of its defenders. Her reasons include high performance standards, the incredible opportunities presented by the production of seven full-blown operas and one musical per year, frequent concerts and recitals, and some excellent courses. “Our productions are fabulous, high-quality operas. Sometimes I sit in awe listening to my colleagues and I feel privileged to be here and to know them.”
Maya believes that students generally place too much emphasis on being cast in operas, and parts are difficult to get. “The audition process is a total cattle call open to all students,” she says. “You have four minutes on the MAC [Musical Arts Center] stage and if you’re not finished they will cut you off. Even though every role is double cast, some students never make it.”
Singers vying for a handful of coveted roles, casting that seems to favor some studios, and the perceived politics of placing productions over what’s best for students have led to hard feelings. In fact, casting for Opera Theatre appears to be the biggest source of complaint for students in the graduate program.
Even Howell, who was cast in three main stage operas and two chamber operas during his Master’s program, is somewhat jaded about the process. “There are a lot of performing opportunities available, but these opportunities are not equally shared. The casting committees usually choose the same handful of singers regardless of the singer’s previous performances that year.”
IU’s Director of Opera Theatre, Dr. Mark Clark, understands where students are coming from when they voice such opinions. He’s been there. Back in the 1970s when he was a student in the Voice program, most of the main roles went to faculty, students often held multiple roles in one year, and productions were staged in two intense weeks that left singers and musicians exhausted. As one who was never cast in a production, he is sensitive to the issue.
“I am aware of complaints of underlying politics, but I’m involved in every casting meeting and they are not political. That does not mean they are always entirely fair. You have conductors and directors who are comfortable with people they’ve cast before. They comprise the committee along with voice faculty, the Dean and unbiased coaches. I’ve seen it in action and I know that there’s a genuine effort to cast as many different students as possible.”
Clark adds that many changes have been made since he was in the program. With the rare exception, all productions are now cast only with students, and a limit of one role per season has been set. Operas are double cast to give as many students as possible an opportunity to perform, and staging has been expanded to a minimum of three weeks (longer for more demanding productions). As for the grueling auditions, a shift in the schedule from one large cattle call to two smaller ones during the year has alleviated the problem somewhat.
Answering the accusation that some teachers get a disproportionate number of their students cast, Dr. Kiesgen says: “As you might expect, some of our teachers have developed a very strong reputation around the world and they tend to attract a large number of the most talented people. It may be true that a few teachers have a larger number of students cast … but the process of casting is completely fair.”
Clark has another take. He believes that certain teachers simply have more savvy at preparing students for auditions. “Some of them have it down to an art. They know what the committee is looking for.”
What they are looking for is a combination of voice, technique, stage presence, focus on the role, and transformation into character. All of this has to be evident in four minutes. But the casting committee also considers where students are in their program and vocal development. “There are a lot of factors,” says Clark. “What we try to do is give students opportunities to move forward one step at a time. You don’t want to put them in huge major roles if they’re inexperienced. One of our biggest challenges is the fact that 60 to 65% of our singers are sopranos. There just aren’t enough roles to go around.”
As evidence of the balance they strive to achieve in casting, Clark submits the cast for the fall ‘01 production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. Smaller roles were cast almost exclusively with undergrads and larger parts with grad students who had worked their way up from less challenging roles. Fourteen of the 22 students represented eight different studios, while six listed no voice teacher.
Clearly, for most graduate voice students at IU, Opera Theatre represents the brass ring. Many become so focused on grabbing it that they fail to see the wealth of other opportunities that surround them. “Those who do not land opera roles can still get their fill of performance,” says Maya Hoover. “There are also choirs, ensembles, concerts, recitals and more.”
Clark suggests that students look beyond IU as well in seeking performance experiences. “They can audition for musicals and operas out there. When they did Carmen in Indianapolis, we were able to cast four students,” he says.
So the question remains, is IU really the best grad program in the country for voice students? The answer seems to be yes for some and no for others. Ultimately, it will depend of several factors: what your expectations are upon entering, your talent as a singer (which apparently does open many doors), and how you work the system.
Clark’s advice for incoming graduate students is to be patient during their first year. “Use that time to get your technique in line, work on languages and stage training, and start networking. And take the time to learn how to audition so you can get roles.”
Doctoral student Jessica Riley offers these wise words: “This program is what you choose to make of it. You can’t rely on IU to give you direction. You have to have goals that extend beyond the School of Music and work toward them. If you do that, your time here is going to benefit you in the end. Sure you’ll have disappointments—everyone does—but you will get so much out of it as well.”
